Tuesday, The Washington Post revealed that the CIA has been holding and interrograting terror suspects in an Eastern European prison since September 11. No one has discovered this until now because the CIA has been keeping these suspects in secret. In fact, the CIA still officially won't acknowledge the existence of this and other secret prisons. What's more, the CIA has a worldwide system of secret prisons that was set up four years ago.

Despite official disavowing of the existence of such secret prisons, CIA director Porter Goss and Vice President Dick Cheney have asked that the CIA be exempted from Senate legislation that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. If there's no secret prisons, and we're conforming to the Geneva convention, then why would we ask for such exemptions? Furthermore, if it's not the policy of the United States to engage in torture, then why are we asking for what amount to exemptions from prosecution for torture?!

If you are an American, then an unknown number of prisoners, who have been imprisoned without trial and without regard to whether they may have actually committed a crime or not, is being tortured in your name. The Bush Administration doesn't consider the constraints of the Geneva Convention to apply on non-American soil. (This is the only reason why they set up Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay; the administration thought that Guantanamo Bay was outside the jurisdiction of the United States, and thus outside the jurisdiction of our "official" laws condemning torture. And they say Bill Clinton used legalese.)

And now for something completely different

If Dick Cheney is asked to testify in Scooter Libby's perjury case, will he be required to be under oath? After all, when Cheney appeared in front of the September 11 Commission, he was not under oath. Will he be able to use executive privilege to refuse to answer questions?

Answer: no. In a criminal investigation, executive privilege cannot be used as a justification for refusing to answer questions. In Cheney v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 03-475 (2004), the Supreme Court ruled that the proceedings of the Vice-Presidential Energy Task Force could be protected by executive privilege because there was no criminal investigation. In United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), the Supreme Court ruled that Richard Nixon had to turn over the "Watergate tapes" despite his assertion of executive privilege. Among other things, the court ruled:

Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets, the confidentiality of Presidential communications is not significantly diminished by producing material for a criminal trial under the protected conditions of in camera inspection, and any absolute executive privilege under Art. II of the Constitution would plainly conflict with the function of the courts under the Constitution.

Also:

[W]hen a claim of Presidential privilege as to materials subpoenaed for use in a criminal trial is based, as it is here, not on the ground that military or diplomatic secrets are implicated, but merely on the ground of a generalized interest in confidentiality, the President's generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial and the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice.

United States v. Nixon was an 8-0 decision. Newly-appointed Justice Rehnquist took no part in the decision, since he was fresh out of his position as Assistant Attorney General. So, I think Cheney will have some tough, oath-ified questions to answer.